Sea Change Foundation Philosophy
Focused Philanthropy
Given the need to act quickly in order to avoid the most severe consequences of climate change, our current approach is to focus our philanthropy exclusively on climate mitigation and clean energy initiatives. We provide fewer and larger grants than most foundations with similar grant-making budgets, as it is our view that this approach is critical in order to have a meaningful impact in these areas.
Flexibility and Urgency
We strive to be agile grant-makers, able to react quickly and opportunistically. In addition, we believe the urgent nature of our philanthropic focus requires an efficient and effective grant-making process. Grants are generally made with terms of one year or less to accommodate shifts in strategy in order to make our grant-making most impactful.
Leverage
Recognizing that solving a problem on the scale of mitigating global climate change will require enormous resources, we search for opportunities to engage both market forces and public policy. We see a unique role for philanthropy in addressing instances of market failures until government and/or market forces meaningfully address the issue.
Collaboration
While there is clear scientific consensus on the need to move rapidly towards a decarbonized world, no one charitable organization, business, or government can hope to achieve this alone. Given the sheer scope and myriad approaches necessary to address climate change, stakeholders must work together and learn from one another. As such, we strive to foster collaboration within the NGO community and other philanthropic funders whenever possible.
Innovation and Tolerance for Risk
We are committed to managing risk appropriately through a comprehensive due diligence process. However, we endeavor to be innovative in our philanthropy and are not deterred by unproven approaches as long as there is a corresponding possibility of significant impact.
Areas of Focus
We fund organizations that work to mitigate the impact of climate change by supporting private and public policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy, both in the U.S. and internationally. Our focus areas include utility reform, business and finance, communications and public engagement, transportation, and energy efficiency. Click on the links below for examples of our work: